Some high speed signal/data devices such as re-timer circuits, repeaters, and clock synthesizers are high volume and medium-high pin count devices which are typically packaged in flip chip ball grid array (FC BGA) packages, which are relatively high cost packages. A cost-effective alternative is a wirebond BGA package. However the electrical performance of a wirebond BGA package at high speed (>5 Gigabits per second (Gbps)) is relatively poor, such as having a poor insertion loss and poor return loss.
Integrated circuit (IC) packages can be based on an emerging technology called a molded interconnect substrate (MIS). A MIS starts with a specialized substrate material for select IC packages. The MIS itself is developed and sold by various vendors, and a packaging house then generally takes the MIS and assembles an IC package around it including adding molding. Some refer to the MIS as a leadframe.
MIS is different than traditional substrates, as MIS technology comprises a pre-molded structure with one or more metal layers. Each layer is pre-configured generally with at least a top and a bottom copper plating layer with a dielectric layer between copper layers having vias to provide an electrical connections in the package.